


I Do! I Do! ... Do I?

by VeronicaRich



Series: Smokin' Aces [7]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-14
Updated: 2011-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeronicaRich/pseuds/VeronicaRich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rimmer tells his niece the story of how he realized Lister was the one for him. (Set in my own AU following "Machine in the Ghost;" can be read as a standalone, though.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Do! I Do! ... Do I?

In many ways, Arnold Rimmer reflected, the better parts of his life hadn’t truly begun until after he died. He’d had a few years of being alone with the _Wildfire_ between rescues and missions to think on it, and concluded that death liberated one from the subjective moralities of society, as well as the prejudices of the living – after all, “deadies” were already quite literally _persona non grata_ to most “livvies.”

A different kind of Livvie was apparently on Althea’s mind as she helped her Uncle Arnie clean the captain’s quarters. “How’d you and Dave hook up?” she asked, her loud voice carrying from the depths of the closet

It had been centuries of millennia since she and Lyle had inhabited the quarters, and Rimmer and Lister had given the large apartment a cursory once-over upon temporarily moving in when they arrived on the _Barbie_. The two men had moved out what few items they’d managed to bring into the place, into other officers’ quarters around a couple of corridor bends, and now uncle was helping niece do some deeper cleaning over Kryten’s objections. “There’s plenty of ship to scrub,” Rimmer had testified irritably, looking forward to putting something in order larger than a gnat’s living room – Ace’s ship was sleek and lovely, but cramped for space, and he hadn’t had much chance to exercise his need to tidy and clean for the few years he’d lived there. And trying to keep anything tidy for long with Lister sharing the space was an exercise in waving bye-bye to effort put forth.

Rimmer weighed her question, remembering a dim dive of a bar where Lister had walked back into his life – er, existence – and then a spacious hotel room where they’d done even more. Well, he wasn’t going to tell her _that_. “Um …” he trailed off, stalling for time as he went through a bureau’s contents for webs, bugs, and other dust and dirt.

Withdrawing from the closet, Althea laughed at her uncle’s clearly embarrassed expression. “Fine,” she conceded, holding up her hands in understanding. “When did you decide he was the person you wanted?”

There’d been a series of revelations, none terribly exciting for anyone but him. There was that one time, though. “It was about two years ago or so,” he began, changing position from squatting on his haunches to sitting on the floor, crossing his long legs Indian-style. “Fiona picked up this distress signal from a Kryten in another dimension. Luckily, we weren’t that far away, after the jumping. Lister had been taken prisoner by a group of rogue simulants looking for prisoners to sink psychic hooks into, to do their bidding.”

“And you rescued him?”

Rimmer shook his head. “I couldn’t really do that. Not alone …”

*****

Bounding up the steps into the midsection from the cargo bay, Ace came to almost a dead stop when he spotted the other Rimmer near the cockpit entrance. The man was in something close to the old technician’s chinos and jacket that Ace Rimmer had worn most of the time back when _he_ was alive and simply “Rimmer,” arms crossed imperiously, nose up and flaring angrily. “If it isn’t Mr. Smug-Git,” he snapped off.

Ace noticed Rimmer’s leg was jiggling; he’d seen it in so many Rimmers by now that it might as well be accepted as a genetic certainty. “Arn,” he nodded, in a neutral tone.

“You’re looking for everyone else; they’re at a market,” he informed Ace with nasal crispness. He made a shooing motion. “It’s nearly dinnertime; if you leave now, you could get there in time maybe to get Lister drunk for … whatever.” He nearly sneered, so clearly uncomfortable that it made Ace hurt. “Not that it would be necessary, of course.”

He took a step closer to this Rimmer. “I’m here because I need your help,” he responded, levelly. “The others do, too. Kryten’s the one whose distress signal I picked up.”

Rimmer’s haughty defensiveness hardened. “I didn’t get any signal,” he snapped.

“Were you paying attention?” Yeah, it was a fair question – if this git was anything like he’d been, Ace could guess he’d been doing something else while everybody else was off investigating, hiding back here under the guise of “monitoring” their signal and “guarding” the small green craft.

Rimmer’s face reddened; he dropped his eyes briefly, but admitted nothing. “I would have heard a prolonged signal!” he countered.

Ace shook his head. “They’re all in trouble. Kryten wasn’t able to broadcast for long; my ship’s computer picked it up because she _looks_ for these things.” Rimmer said nothing. “They’re all being held … more or less. Lister’s the only one imprisoned in a cell, so far.”

“Imprisoned?” It came out as almost a squeak, after which Rimmer cleared his throat. The leg stopped jiggling. “Lister?” His voice was strained with audible worry.

Ace resisted a smile; he knew Lister wasn’t quite in mortal danger – at least not yet – but Rimmer didn’t have to be told. “A little rough handling, is all,” he said with a slight nod. “For now.”

“Wh-” The other Rimmer cleared his throat again and swallowed. “Why? What happened?”

“Apparently there’s a simulant who’s taken quite a liking to Lister and is getting ready to try to sink in his psychic hooks.” Ace settled his hands on his hips, stance wider than Rimmer’s, and studied his other self closely. “You going to let him do that to her?”

*****

 _“Her?”_ Althea stopped going through the box from the top of the closet. “Dave was a woman?”

“It was Kimberly,” Rimmer corrected. “Kim. Well, Lister, really – she still went by her last name.” He grinned at Althea’s speculative, amused look. “She was surprisingly clean – apparently being a girl was more of an incentive to take more frequent baths.” His niece laughed. “They’d both survived the nuclear accident aboard the _Dwarf_ ; I missed getting into a stasis booth right before it hit, but I guess that Rimmer didn’t stop to comb his hair.” He shrugged.

“Were they …” Althea waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh no, their animosity was firmly intact. Apparently they got off to a bad start way back when they first met; I don’t know what happened,” he lied, remembering his own bad first contact with hopper driver Dave Lister on Mimas. “It only got worse when that Rimmer’s roommate started dating her and she was around all the time. Even in the middle of danger, they were still fighting like feral cats …”

*****

Ace managed to snag some keys and sneaked himself and Rimmer past a couple of guards to see Lister in her cell. Rimmer rushed toward the cell, then stopped a few feet away, edging closer as if slogging through a force field. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Lister turned around from where she’d been examining her teeth in the small mirror over the sink, and visibly brightened a little upon seeing Rimmer. “Hey, what brings you-” Rimmer nearly interrupted, but then she saw his heroic doppelganger. “Ace!” she cried in delight, a big smile. “Where’d you come from?”

“Oh, you know – around,” Ace flirted automatically, showing a mouthful of teeth. He noticed Rimmer was beginning to deflate, the man’s nervousness and worry shifting into suspicion and resignation. Ace knew how he felt; he couldn’t help it if he enjoyed how people now responded to his confidence and self-assurance, but he remembered what it was like to have neither and watch another Lister fawn over another Ace. “Rimmer’s here to help get you out of here.”

Lister eyed Rimmer with open doubt, though she continued speaking to Ace. “He’s got a yellow streak longer than a caravan of canaries,” she muttered. “How’d you drag him down here?”

Rimmer straightened out of the slouch he’d started to sink into. “I came on my own, thank you!” he hissed, lowering his voice halfway through when Ace pressed his hands down in mid-air and made the “shush” face, looking around.

“Rimmer, man, you made up excuses to stay back on _Starbug_ while we were putting our arses on the line down here,” she pointed out. “I mean, I know that’s standard operating procedure for you-”

“Do you want to be rescued or not?” he snapped, cutting her off.

Lister’s dark eyes glinted dangerously, briefly, before the woman visibly reined in her temper and bit off whatever verbal poison she’d been about to deliver. “We can’t get out past the guards, not all of us,” she pointed out. “I don’t know how you got in this time.” But she looked to Ace, and an adoring, softening expression replaced her annoyance; he knew she was likely splitting her thoughts between crediting him for the break-in (which was true enough) and thinking of pleasant ways she could thank him.

He was surprised by Rimmer’s businesslike interruption. “We don’t have time for this,” he told her and Ace. “We’re going to be found if we don’t talk faster.”

“He’s right,” Ace told Lister, lowering his voice and moving closer between them. “We don’t intend to break you out of here. Right now, Kryten’s distracting your captors while Cat sneaks back to the _‘Bug_ to prepare for immediate takeoff once we’re all back.” He was relieved to see they were both paying attention now, instead of sniping at each other. “Here’s what’s going to happen …” he began, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

 _Two hours later …_

For their audience with Majareen, Ace had loaned his real clothes – khakis, black t-shirt, and worn leather jacket – to Rimmer and called upon his hard-light programming to recreate the bronze flight suit and marine boots of his predecessors. No doubt such a dangerous group of simulants had heard of Ace, if not tangled with the space hero, and while this Ace preferred to operate from a lower profile, he was not above using the stature of the role’s reputation when a life was at stake.

Besides, the less he looked like Rimmer, the less he had to explain. Also, for this he wanted Rimmer to look like something a bit more elevated than the chicken soup guy – say, the captain of a small aircraft.

Ace and Kryten acknowledged each other subtly when all four of them were installed in the small den of the simulant leader’s headquarters. There’d been the offer of beverages, a polite refusal, and small talk before Ace had pressed the issue of reclaiming Lister.

“She’s a lovely one, isn’t she?” Majareen showed some teeth in his smile. “Rafe has developed quite a liking for her.”

“Rafe?” Rimmer asked. He hadn’t said much since they arrived, concentrating his energy on trying to come across as commanding, indulgent, calm, and worried all at once. It didn’t leave much brainpower for speech.

“He wants to connect his psychic hooks into her,” Majareen said. “That’s who went to get her just now. You know, our ancestors learned that the offspring of a simulant and a human was more powerful than the product of two simulants.”

Ace glanced sideways and down, noticing Rimmer’s hand balling into a fist. While the possibility of fisticuffs worried him, as he suspected his other self in a fight would have as much success as chewing gum plugging a dam, he was glad to see Rimmer’s obvious personal interest in the proceedings. It _would_ make what he had to do next far easier to pull off.

“Well, old bean, that _is_ a creative phrase for slavery,” Ace observed coolly.

Majareen snorted. “Humans have no platform from which to preach about slavery,” he informed Ace, who well knew the simulants had been created for just that.

“I say, though, do you think the answer is to carry on the reprehensible practice?” Ace asked. “You’re no better than humans? You’re saying that?”

Before Majareen could answer, Rafe escorted Lister into the room. His hand was clamped lightly around her upper arm; she wasn’t resisting, but she wasn’t exactly sidling up to him and purring, either. They stopped a few feet from the small group. When nothing happened, Ace shifted his weight subtly to give Rimmer a quick, swift kick in the side of his ankle – the man glanced at him, glaring, and Ace flicked his eyes toward Lister, widening them briefly before lapsing into a fit of manly coughing.

To his credit, Rimmer was bright enough to catch on. “Lis- Kim!” he cried, correcting to try sounding less like some ex-boyfriend’s roommate and more like a concerned lover. He hesitated, then moved toward her. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” Ace saw him glare at Rafe, but it seemed less theatrical and more genuine. _Play it up, buddy,_ he thought. _Put that confusing ball of twisted feelings in your gut to good use._

Lister played her part like a diva angling for a Tony. “Arnie!” she said happily, brightening at his show of concern. Ace felt a brief stab of pity for Rimmer, who blinked at the greeting like he wanted to believe it. “What took you so long?”

“Er, I, um …” he began, faltering. Ace swore inwardly, wanting to smack the guy upside the back of his head, but then realized it sounded like actual worry and nerves – appropriate enough for a husband. “I thought you were at the market,” he finally said. “When you didn’t show up, I started to worry.”

“Enough of this.” Majareen cut them off; Rafe looked equal parts confused and angry, so Ace subtly balanced himself to take him physically if the need arose. “Why are you here?”

This time, Rimmer took the lead. “That’s my wife,” he said, pointing at Lister.

“Says who?” Majareen asked with mild annoyance, as if this were just another bump in his day. It probably was, Ace reflected. “You could be lying.”

“I could,” Rimmer nodded, “but I’m not.” He reached into the leather jacket’s inner pocket and withdrew the piece of paper Ace had produced two hours earlier in the underground prison, which had been subsequently, hurriedly aged with a small, powerful portable light Ace had learned to use in a similar type of scam just a few months earlier. The marriage certificate didn’t have to look very old, but it would be best, they’d all agreed, if the ink didn’t smear as fresh today. “See?”

Majareen read it over and raised an amused eyebrow at Ace. “I didn’t know you carried your priestly vestments with you,” he said. “Where do you stow an altar in that tiny ship of yours?”

Ace winked. “No priest here, old chap; can’t stay quite celibate enough for that.” For a few seconds, they smiled together, knowingly. “But I am a captain, and for millennia, on these two good folks’ home solar system, that was of a legal standing to administer the oath of marriage. Still is … so far as I know.” He shrugged, as if overseeing legal unions was something he did all the time.

“When did you do it, today?”

Ace took it for a wiseass remark. “Sure,” he said agreeably. “We all woke up this morning, and they got married.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve known Arnie and Kim; met ‘em almost a year ago at a Kinitawawe celebration. They had a little vino, decided they wanted to get married, and Bob’s your uncle, I signed a paper.”

He nodded at the paper Majareen was handing back to a tight-faced Rimmer; the leader’s expression had changed, as though he accepted the story. And right here was the whole reason Ace had wanted _his_ name on the paper in the first place – some faraway fictional holy man or municipal official’s signature might have been debated. (As for requiring the two to be married in the first place? Ace had no bloody idea of the “legality” of anything he signed – but some simulants could read minds, and it was easier to have the kids think they were hitched if they thought they really _were_. This way all they had to concentrate on was the length of time.) “Just let the kids go, Maj; you don’t want a fight over this, do you?”

“She’s NOT leaving.” Rafe hauled Lister against him and tried to kiss her. A few things happened rapidly:

Lister turned her head aside and kicked Rafe in the shin;

Rafe looked bewildered, then raised one of those hands as if to hit her;

To Ace’s surprise – and he wagered, Lister’s – Rimmer whacked Rafe in the back of the head with the flat of his hand, causing him to briefly release Lister, in surprise;

Rimmer grabbed for Lister’s hand and yanked her behind him, still facing a very crabby and taller Rafe;

With a great deal of indignation at her overall treatment and this latest straw, Lister reflexively hissed at Rimmer, “What the smeg are you doing? I am NOT some flitting damsel to be shoved behind you!”

“Would you hush UP?” Rimmer stage-whispered back at her over his shoulder. “I’m trying to save you!”

“What, by being a Neanderthal?” she demanded.

Ignoring the threat from the offended simulant, Rimmer spun on Lister, visibly upset. “Nothing pleases you!” he accused. “You ungrateful … wench!”

Lister put her hands on her hips and nearly came up on her tiptoes to glare at him. “WHAT did you call me?”

“Listen, you never-” Rimmer started, pointing a finger in her face, at the same time she began, “Buddy, I’d get that finger out of my face if I were you-” And then the finger – and the rest of Rimmer – went down like a sack of potatoes as a big, powerful hand knocked him in the side of the head from behind. His eyes rolled up into his head, his lids fluttered, and he collapsed sideways at Lister’s feet.

Narrowing her eyes, Lister practically leaped over her newly legal husband and barreled into Rafe, knocking him back. She straddled him on the floor, her meaty forearm shoved against the front of his neck, her face two inches from his as she yelled at him about fighting dirty and threatening a woman, interspersed with “I should’ve socked you awhile ago” and “how DARE you attack him like that?” before Ace decided to pull her off of him.

Lister and Kryten managed to get Rimmer partly conscious and upright before Kryten had to haul him up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Majareen watched, undoubtedly noting, as did Ace, the way Lister lightly rubbed the side of Rimmer’s head and spoke to him in a low voice, looking worried. He looked at Ace, then over at Rafe with bemused disgust, then back to Ace – and waved his hand. “All right, you’ve proven your point. Nobody else is getting a hook in either of _those_ two. Now I suggest you take your leave of our fair planetoid with all haste.”

Ace snapped off a salute – not a Rimmer, but a regular one. “Until next time, Maj,” the space hero cockily assented.

“Yes – I rather suspect there’ll be one,” the simulant leader sighed.

Very late that night, once they were making rapid vapor trails away from their latest group debacle, Ace decided he’d stick around for a night or two to take advantage of stretching out in a longer bunk. He bid Cat goodnight at the cockpit controls and trudged upstairs to the sleeping quarters to find some lower bunk to collapse into. As he moved along the short corridor upstairs, he heard raised voices through an open door.

“If you weren’t such a damn coward and stayed here-”

“If I weren’t such a ‘damned coward’ and had gone with you, I couldn’t have gotten you out, could I?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have even noticed if Ace hadn’t showed up!”

“Oh, of course, ACE! The savior of the universe!”

 _Unbelievable,_ the universe’s busted-ass tired savior thought, sidling along the wall toward the open door. He peeked in, satisfied himself neither was looking toward the corridor, and raced past to hurry down the hallway. _Are they still at this after all these hours? Did Lister and I sound THAT bad? What monumentally stupid, limited-minded people they are. Nobody else around and they still can’t find anything in common._

Twenty minutes later, after a quick shower and change, just as he was about to crawl into bed in his loaned cabin, Ace groaned, realizing he’d forgotten something rather vital for his bee recharge aboard the _Wildfire_. With a growl, he located some slippers and sneaked back out into and down the corridor, slowing again as he neared the open door.

This time, there was no yelling; he was grateful. Moving closer, he peered around the edge to wait for the all-clear. _Well_ , he thought with some surprise – but not entirely. _At least they’re not fighting._

It took him a few seconds to figure it out, since he thought he only saw one person. This other Rimmer and Lister were clutching at one another, kissing with a desperation reserved for the discovery of ice water on the other side of a desert. His arms were wrapped tightly around her torso, and for a moment Ace wondered if he were forcing her into something – but then he saw her hand on Rimmer’s head, her fingers stroking through his tight curls, and Ace exhaled a small puff of relieved air. He _really_ couldn’t have handled breaking up another assault tonight.

They put a very small distance between their mouths while he lingered, still hiding. He couldn’t hear anything they said, but Rimmer looked pleasantly dazed, one hand flat against the nape of her neck, the other moving down to the small of her back, while Lister cupped his face and rubbed her forehead against his. They both laughed quietly before Rimmer pulled her closer; she put her face in the hollow of his neck and fitted her body against his … and Ace _No, I’m still Rimmer, damn it; I’ve never felt more like Rimmer having nothing like this of my own_ felt his heart break.

Instead of sneaking past the doorway, he moved back toward his borrowed quarters a short distance, slid to the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, and pressed his face into trembling hands until well after he’d heard the door shut.

*****

“Uncle Arnie?” He felt her fingers on his forearm. “Are you okay? You still with me?”

He blinked and took a deep breath as if coming out of a trance. For some reason he sniffed, then felt something cool on his face and realized with great chagrin that there were fresh tear tracks. “I’m here,” he assured Althea, using his sleeve to rub his face dry. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s all right.” She was facing his side, hunkered down. “It’s not bad, to be honest. Kind of nice to see one of you has a soul.” He must’ve looked confused. “I’m not sure your brothers would’ve noticed if someone had substituted fembots for their wives at some point,” she sighed, then stood and kept her eyes pointed at him.

“I’m fairly sure no company ever got around to building a droid like Lister,” Rimmer agreed. “They would’ve gone bankrupt six months after introducing the first model line.”

“Atta boy,” she said cheerfully, turning back to face her unfinished cleaning job. “Good story. That’s enough of a break for me, I guess. Back inside the closet.”

As she walked away, Rimmer rubbed at the corner of an eye and shook his head quietly. _Not for me,_ he thought. _Spent enough time there._


End file.
